A call for questions ...

A call for questions ... and comments, thoughts, concerns and listeners who would just like to be kept in the loop about all the happenings at Sylvania UCC during the transition period. Much is going on right now in the life of the church and perhaps you've wondered what the status is of the various committees' work.

Our moderators, Sue Crescitelli and Russ Miller, are providing us with the opportunity to learn more about where we are on the journey, what progress has been made and what to look for in the months to come at a church-wide forum to be held Sunday, June 3, following the 10:00 am service. 

In Russ' words:

June 3 Congregational Forum -- Given the various processes and projects under way at this time in our church, congregational leadership felt that an open forum for the congregation would be timely and helpful to update the congregation on these various matters, and to seek input on those various matters. Accordingly, an open congregational forum has been scheduled for Sunday, June 3, 2012, following the 10:00 a.m. service.

At that time, representatives of Search Committee, Transition Team, Visioning Team, and Open and Affirming Study Group will be present to provide a brief update on the status of their efforts. Following each update, the forum will be opened for questions or comments on each respective area. The purpose of this forum is to provide and obtain information. This is an opportunity to include the congregation in the on-going conversation about issues of current concern to the membership. As matters requiring congregational approval are finalized, other opportunities to discuss final recommendations will be provided, and formal meetings will be scheduled to formally consider these matters.

Your attendance and participation on June 3 is encouraged.

-- Russ Miller

Thanks to Sue and Russ for organizing this forum and providing us with the opportunity to share our thoughts. Hope to see you there!

-- Bonnie 

Update from the Search Committee

The Search Committee has been hard at work revising many "final" drafts of the church profile. We met with Reverend Dan Busch, Northwest Ohio Association minister, on April 16, 2012. He made additional suggestions about the draft profile that we will be incorporating. He also suggested that we make the profile's appearance as professional as possible. The church profile should be available for review and distribution by the first week in May.

Most exciting, Reverend Busch brought us the first group of applicant profiles. Then we walked through the review process in general. Electronic copies of this group of profiles were received and disseminated to all Search Committee members on April 20, 2012. We will begin the actual review process on April 23, 2012. It's exciting to be entering this phase of the search process!

-- Jeanne

A Hope and a Future! -- Information Session

A HOPE AND A FUTURE! is the title Carolyn Weese, consultant with Multi-Staff Ministries, gave to the report she prepared for Sylvania United Church of Christ following her nine-day visit with us in February.

Cabinet and the Transition Team have been reviewing and prioritizing the recommendations in the report, and subcommittees have been studying the suggestions and how they can best fit our needs and traditions at Sylvania UCC.

A Hope and a Future! is a positive report and stresses the importance of ALL our ministries, outreach and activities. It is the intention of the Transition Team to design proposals that will retain and support all our church's work.

Come learn about the report on Sunday, April 15, during the 9:20 - 10:20 am education hour. Members of the Transition Team will be there to present the findings and recommendations outlined in the report and to share our hopes for the future.

Bonnie

Faith in Questions: Questions of Faith

Dear friends, since God loved us that much, we surely ought to love each other. No one has ever seen God. But if we love each other, God lives in us, and his love has been brought to full expression through us. And God has given us his Spirit as proof that we live in him and he in us.

-I John 4:11-13

Transitions can be a lot like Festivus from Seinfeld. First there's an airing of grievances and then come the feats of strength. Old scabs can be picked at, old fights re-started, and then there's a force of wills that follows this on who was/is right and who was and still is wrong. 

We haven't had that. 

After two consultants, we still don't have that. It seems we are acting as we are called to through the letter of John. We are trying our best to love one another, understand each other and express that God is within our neighbor just as God is within us. 

That's pretty cool! 

Now comes the hard part. We have to change the way we do things. Well, not yet. First we have to figure out what exactly to change that will get us toward our vision of who we are and who we want to be. And actually, THAT is the hard part. So let's get into the questions:

• We are a moderately sized pastoral church, do we want to be a large programmatic church?
• We are already a welcoming church, do we want to become an Open and Affirming church?
• We need to attract young families, but how do we do that and what exactly are they looking for?
• We are largely a progressive church theologically, how do we affirm that yet keep those who are moderate to traditional in theology feeling like they are still welcomed and part of the community?
• How do we as the clergy, staff, and transition teams keep our laity informed and up-to-date on what's going on?

These are serious questions. These are constantly on my mind as we enter the next phase of this transition. I am grateful for how far we've come and how we've gotten here. It is my prayer that we continue in this fashion. 

We have done so without picking old wounds, without conflict, and all things in love. Our anxiety levels have remained low and manageable, and we walk with one another in faith.

And we have shown our faith in this time through our works, as faith without works is dead. Or to put it another way, a faith that isn't lived out is no faith at all.

More news from the Search Committee

We have a new member of the Search Committee. Please welcome Renee Long who has agreed to join the "team" and kindly sent us the following background information about herself:

Renee Long has been an active Christian as long as she can remember, and has been an active member at Sylvania UCC since 2006. She has lived in the Toledo area all her life, and attended the University of Toledo and BGSU where she earned a Bachelor’s degree in Elementary Education and a Master’s in Counseling. She has worked exclusively in the field of education for a variety of school districts for the past 22 years. Renee and Steve, her husband of 21 years, have been blessed with 4 children, Jacob (15), Larson (14), Nathaniel (10) and Jacquelyn (8). Renee is very active in her children's lives, volunteering as Cub Scout Den Chief, Brownie Leader, Room Mother, PTA Secretary and Sunday School Teacher, among others. To relax, Renee likes to read, cross-stitch, cook, visit historical and cultural sites, view Toledo Rep and other theatre productions, travel, and take long walks.

-- Jeanne

Our sincere thanks to Renee and all the members of the committee who are volunteering to serve our church in this capacity. Your willingness to give of your time and talents is much appreciated.

News from the Search Committee

The members of the Search Committee have been meeting and Jeanne Brockmyer, chairperson, sent us this update:

The Search Committee met with Reverend Dan Busch on January 23, 2012. We had a great conversation about both broad and nitty-gritty search issues. The Association is definitely there to help us in this critical journey.

Now the Search Committee is hard at work on the Church Profile. It is a difficult task because we need to show potential candidates who we are in both statistical data and in the deepest sense of our convictions. Fortunately, we have the help of the survey from Russell Crabtree and the work of the Vision Team.

We invite your input to any of the Search Committee members. Working together, we will know God's direction for our pastoral leadership.

- Jeanne

A warm welcome to Carolyn

Sylvania UCC welcomes Carolyn Weese, Consultant, of Multi-Staff Ministries, Goodyear AZ, who agreed to leave sunny 75° weather to spend the week with us in 40° Toledo. (But, hey, no snow -- it could be worse!)

Carolyn is apt to see little of the outdoors anyway as her 13-hour days are filled with meetings, meetings ... and more meetings. Approximately 45 to 50 by my count. Added to that will be lunch and dinner meetings, church services and education hour attendance and Sunday School observation.

As we talk with Carolyn, both individually and as members of staff, committees, boards and Cabinet, she'll get to know us and learn a great deal about our church. With this insight and knowledge of our organization Carolyn can:

• Present an objective perspective
• Provide guidance through the preparation for transition and call process
• Recommend needed and necessary changes that will prepare Sylvania UCC to receive a new pastor. *

Thank you, Carolyn, for visiting us this week and sharing with us your experience and expertise in creating viable and healthy attributes for our church.

* from "Request for Proposal" for Sylvania UCC, Multi-Staff Ministries, January 3, 2012.

- Bonnie

Forum Review

Thanks to all who attended the forum last Sunday to hear about the CAT results. 70-75 people learned about several key findings, including the Top Five Drivers of Satisfaction (which place Sylvania UCC on the High Energy/High Satisfaction quadrant of the Energy-Satisfaction Map), Descriptive Indices such as our theological perspective and flexibility style, and numerous Performance Indices relating to hospitality, morale, conflict management, governance, spiritual vitality, readiness for ministry, educational engagement, and worship and music.

We continued with an overview of our top Critical Abilities for the Pastor and Ministry Priorities. For suggestions from the congregation on how we will accomplish our Ministry Priorities we broke into small discussion groups. The Transition Team will compile the various ideas for those in the relevant ministry areas to use in future planning.

Our thanks to Al Palmer who unveiled the draft of the Vision Statement and to Jeanne Brockmyer who gave an update on the activity of the Search Team. Both committees have done great work as evidenced from their reports.

For those who are interested in reading the survey documents please see Amy in the office. You'll find 70+ pages of information about our church, how we see it now and our goals for the future.

The members of the Transition, Vision and Search Teams are listed under the "About the Blog" tab above -- all of us welcome your thoughts, suggestions, questions, comments and concerns!

--Bonnie

Findings in more detail -- Part 6

To wrap up this series on the Findings we continue with #18 - 20 from BridgeDesign for Sylvania UCC, Findings:

Finding #18

When asked what changes might improve their level of effectiveness or satisfaction the staff's top three priorities were

• Improve supervisory skills of those managing others through training and coaching.
• Develop better communication among the staff.
• Involve staff members in a planning process so that more clarity regarding long-term vision and direction is understood.

Other potential work areas include providing more opportunities for professional development and addressing the concern that staff members are often spending an excessive amount of time recruiting members to work in their ministry areas.

Finding #19

Staff members are mixed in their level of comfort with the transition process. There is a relatively high level of satisfaction with the way leaders are communicating with them and clarity that their work is a good fit for who they are. There appears to be a significant, though typical, level of anxiety about their future employment with the church. It is important to note that more than half of staff members indicate there are staffing issues that need to be resolved prior to the calling of the next pastor.

Finding #20

The current staffing configuration evolved as a way to support the church during the illness of Dr. Chidester and has been maintained during the interim period. This appears to be working well for both the church and the staff. However, with the calling of the next pastor it is possible that significant changes will take place in the organizational structure and management philosophy of the staff.

A final reminder about the forum on January 22, 2 - 4 pm, where we will continue the discussion about the survey results and the succession process. Hope to see you there!

-- Bonnie

Findings in more detail -- Part 5

Next up: Findings #15 - 17 from BridgeDesign for Sylvania UCC, Findings:

Finding #15

Members are less confident that the congregation has adjusted well to the loss of the former pastor. 46% of members are on the fence on that question, scoring lower than 72% of the churches in the database. Members also indicated a lower level of readiness of the members to follow the leadership of a new pastor. When asked about the level of difficulty for the congregation in adjusting to the loss of the former pastor and accepting the leadership of the next pastor, staff members estimate a level of difficulty higher than any other church staff in the database.

Finding #16

Members indicate a relatively high level of comfort with the pace of the transition (77th percentile) and the way that members are being utilized in that transition process (82nd percentile).

Finding #17

Staff members at Sylvania UCC indicate a high level of morale with strengths in the areas of flexibility, working as a team, conflict management, and general management. Staff members appear to feel best about their work when they also feel that:

• There is not a disturbing level of conflict
• The staff is good at identifying and building on the strengths and gifts of staff members
• The assignment of work is fair and balanced between the needs of the church and the needs of individuals

Look for the Findings series to wrap up in our next post ... and plan to attend the forum on Sunday, January 22, 2 - 4 pm to hear more about our survey results. As always, questions and comments are welcomed!

-- Bonnie

Findings in more detail -- Part 4

We're continuing our series with Findings #11-14 below. Two more posts this week will cover Findings #15-17 and, finally, #18-20 to wrap up the set of 20 Findings generated from our CAT. A complete set of documents from our surveys is in the church office and is available to be read -- or borrowed for a short period for copying purposes -- by all.

Before we begin with the Findings, we have a great suggestion about our Facebook page from Luke, published in the January 15th church bulletin:

SYLVANIA UCC ON FACEBOOK: Don't want to dive into the world of Facebook? You don't have to have a Facebook account to see the church's page. Go to http://www.facebook.com/SylvaniaUCC to see links to blog posts, sermon audio, transition updates, event pictures, breaking UCC news and more! If you do have a Facebook account, please "Like" us.

Thanks, Luke, for the helpful reminder! I would add that you can also find direct links to the Facebook page and to this blog (along with links to several other sites) on the homepage of our church website: http://www.sylvaniaucc.org/ The Facebook link is found towards the bottom of the left side under "Follow us on Facebook!" and the link to this transition blog is directly under the title "Claimed by God, Responding as Disciples."

Now on to our Findings.

Finding #11

Generationally, the members of Sylvania UCC indicate a very high level of unity in the priorities across generational cohorts including church growth, healing, strengthening the process for calling and equipping leaders, and expanding outreach ministries. Each cohort has an area of focus which is unique to it. For persons under 35 it is working to renew and revitalize the community around the church; for persons 35 to 64, it is strengthening the management and support of persons in ministry; for persons 65 and older it is developing the spiritual generosity of the membership.

Finding #12

Infrequent attenders differ from more frequent attenders in that they give higher priority to 1.) renewing and revitalizing the community around the church, and 2.) advocating for social and institutional change. Impatience with progress in these areas may account for their lower level of engagement.

Finding #13

On the whole, members see the church as maintaining its strength during the interim period, though there is a diversity of perspective on this issue: about 20% of members see the church as stronger or much stronger and 15% as weaker or much weaker.

Finding #14

Overall, members believe the leadership is doing a good job communicating with the congregation during the transition, scoring higher than 75% of the churches in the database.

Sunday, January 22, 2 to 4 pm, is our church-wide forum to discuss these Findings. Hope to see you there. In the meantime, you're welcome to leave a comment or question below.

-- Bonnie

Findings in more detail -- Part 3

For those of you still with us here we continue on with additional Findings from our CAT.

From BridgeDesign for Sylvania UCC:

Finding #7

With the exception of the Spiritual Vitality Index, Sylvania UCC scores "high" or "very high" in every performance index of our instruments including hospitality, governance, conflict management, engagement in education, readiness for ministry, and worship. In the area of education, Sylvania UCC set a new high in our database.

Finding #8

Worship attendance at Sylvania UCC has declined slightly over recent years. Church records indicate that the current average Sunday attendance is 217 persons compared to 246 persons three years earlier.

Finding #9

Financially, Sylvania UCC has an average level of giving as a percentage of household income. This is consistent for a church with a low-average level of spiritual vitality. With an average household income of $93,000 and a level of giving around 1.8%, the church could potentially expand its annual revenue by $300,000 given the right motivation and emphasis. However, the church is challenged by the fact that members give a relatively low priority to spiritual generosity (8th).

Finding #10

In looking to the future, members of Sylvania UCC give the typically high priorities to reaching new people and healing those broken by life circumstances. What makes the congregation distinctive are unusually high priorities given to

• Expand outreach ministries that provide direct services to those living on the margins of society.
• Work as an advocate for social and institutional change.
• Strengthen the management and support of persons in various ministries.

Questions, thoughts, input? Please leave your comments in the box below. Also plan to attend the forum on January 22 from 2 to 4p and we'll share our ideas.

-- Bonnie

Findings in more detail, Part 2

Sunday's post listed our CAT Findings #1 - 3 (out of 20 total) and we'll continue the series today with Findings #4 - 6.

From BridgeDesign for Sylvania UCC, FINDINGS:

Finding #4

On the whole, Sylvania UCC is theologically progressive. However, it is important to also recognize that there is a relatively high level of theological diversity among members of the congregation. Approximately one in six respondents (16%) clearly agrees that the Bible is the literal Word of God without error of any kind. About a third (56%) clearly disagrees with the same statement. The unusual capacity of a church to live with this level of diversity is almost always a reflection of a pastor who has helped negotiate these differences.

Finding #5

Sylvania UCC is very flexible in its approach to change. This flexibility appears to be moderate in the area of worship, but high or very high regarding efforts to address the needs of those in the community and those within the church, and the willingness to deviate from an established way of doing things. Overall, Sylvania UCC appears to be more adaptable than 83% of the churches in the database.

Finding #6

The combination of a more progressive theological perspective combined with a flexible approach to change reflects an organizational culture that is typically well-educated, articulate, analytic, curious and open. Persons in this culture tend to approach problems from a systems perspective and the need to develop safeguards for those with minority status or who lack the power to protect themselves. They also tend to be permission-based, inviting members to take initiative in a variety of areas with relatively modest support from or accountability to the formal structure of the church. The shadow side of this organizational culture is that it may perceive the development of a specific collective vision as closing down dialogue and, therefore, fail to capitalize on opportunities that require a coordinated, system-wide response. While rationally robust, this organizational culture may tend to intellectualize issues and may struggle to deal with the emotional and relational side of life in a direct and healthy manner.


So, good stuff to mull over! Consider the above Findings, along with the others, and engage fellow church members in conversation. Remember our forum on Sunday, January 22, 2 to 4 pm, where we will further discuss the survey results.

-- Bonnie

Findings in more detail -- Part 1

Our last post, pre-holiday, outlined a short "Executive Summary" of the Findings from the Church Assessment Tool. The longer version contains 20 such Findings in a 5-page report. This report - titled BridgeDesign Findings - is available in the church office, but to save you a trip and time we will reproduce the list here by posting a few Findings several times a week.

And we're not done yet! In addition to the Findings, key points from the 39-page report Vital Signs will be discussed at the forum on Sunday, January 22 from 2 to 4 pm in Wright Hall. The full report is available in the office for those interested in reading it.

So, without further ado -- From Holy Cow! Consulting: BridgeDesign for Sylvania UCC, FINDINGS

Finding #1

Sylvania UCC is a vital church with unusually high levels of energy and satisfaction. The overall morale score for Sylvania UCC is higher than 90% of the churches in our database. This places the church in the transformational zone and suggests long-term strategies focused on growth, replication, extension, and external impact. Like other transformational churches it runs the risk of idealizing its recent past and failing to capitalize upon its opportunities.

Finding #2

Members at Sylvania UCC tend to feel best about the church overall when they believe that

• Persons who serve as leaders in the church are representative of the membership.
• The worship services at the church are exceptional in both quality and spiritual content.
• Being part of the church community has given new meaning to their lives.
• The church provides high quality education that is appropriate to every age and stage of life.
• The church prepares for ministry by helping them discern their gifts.

Conversely, they tend to feel less positively about the church overall when they believe that leaders do not represent them, when they have concerns about the worship experience, when they feel that being part of the church is failing to give meaning to their lives, when the educational ministry is not sufficiently comprehensive, and when the church is failing to help members discern their gifts as preparation for ministry.

Finding #3

Members of Sylvania UCC bear witness to significantly higher levels of involvement beyond worship than most mainline churches and they find that activity very meaningful. High levels of involvement beyond worship in meaningful activities can have a buffering effect during times of stress and is an asset to the church in its succession process.

That's it for now, we'll take this in small bits -- watch for Findings #4 - 6 in Wednesday's post.

We welcome your questions and comments in the box below or in person!

-- Bonnie